In the prior art, wire straighteners have been either of the roller type or the rotary die type. U.S. Pat. No. 4,464,919 discloses a wire straightener of the roller type having banks of wire-guiding rollers. Each bank includes at least three rollers, all aligned in a common plane. The banks of rollers are arranged in an angular position to each other, and wire is straightened by being pulled through the banks. U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,843 discloses a wire straightener of the rotary die type. In this type of straightener, wire straightener dies are arranged in sequence and are offset from each other in a rotating wire straightening arbor. Each die consists of a short straight tube which is beveled at each end to allow the threading of wire through the die. The arbor is rotated as the wire is pulled through the die to straighten the wire.
Both the roller and rotary die wire straighteners perform the function of straighting wire but have two problems. The first problem is that both types of straighteners require a large amount of space to function. In general, this has not proven a serious problem when the wire was being used in single stage manual or semi-automatic processes where the product of a stage was manually transferred to the next production stage. However, in a fully automated cable assembly system, the wire straighteners must be implemented in a small space, and the prior art straighteners exceed the amount space available. The second problem is the difficulty and time involved to thread the wire through either the rollers or the dies. This second problem is particularly important if a large number of wires are being straightened, since it is difficult to manipulate a large number of wires in a limited space. These two problems make the roller or rotary die wire straighteners impractical in an automated cable assembly system where only a small amount of space can be occupied by wire straighteners for a large number of wires.